1. Field of the Invention
An automated embedded data collection system enables a collection of business information, e.g., identity and trade data, directly through a small business' accounting software applications. More specifically, business information is collected by leveraging software applications and processes to push trade and business identity data and/or financial credit data, directly from the small business' accounting programs to a credit company's data storage facility. This manner of collecting business information enhances quality of collected data and increase accuracy and depth of responses to customer credit inquiries.
2. Discussion of the Background Art
Business information companies and directory providers do not currently use software applications to collect financial, trade, and credit data from small to medium businesses. However, there is tremendous value in such data, as access to such data would allow collection and/or credit agencies to understand credit-worthiness of many small to medium businesses with which the agencies transact business.
Business performance information, which includes, but is not limited to, accounts receivable or trade information, has become extremely important in today's business marketplace, both in making credit decisions and in establishing reciprocal trade relationships between companies. Banks, CPA firms, corporations, credit companies, insurers and other underwriters have a need to monitor business performance information of their customers in order to minimize risk and avoid financial surprises. Moreover, the stability of manufacturing and service providing companies is often dependent on one or more key component(s) or services suppliers. Financial or operating problems at these suppliers could cause a chain reaction that adversely affects their business partners. As a result, manufacturing and service companies also have a need to review business performance information of suppliers and other partner businesses upon which they are dependent in order to insure that their future business operations remain stable.
Financial information on publicly traded companies is easily obtainable due to standardization of financial record keeping in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) and quarterly filing and disclosure requirements imposed by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). However, for partnerships and other private business ventures, obtaining accurate and standardized financial information, e.g., accounts receivable or trade information, is much more difficult. Private businesses typically maintain their own financial records on site, or through assistance of an outside accountant, using one of a number of commercial off the shelf (COTS) financial accounting software programs. Such software programs, for example QuickBooks®, are ubiquitously well known in the accounting profession. QuickBooks® is a registered trademark of Intuit, Inc., or one of its subsidiaries. All of these programs, in one form or another, maintain financial records including balance sheets, income statements, individual account statements and other well known financial records.
As a result of the decentralized and unreported nature of small or private business financial information, it is often difficult for interested parties to obtain standardized financial information on businesses with which they are or may be interested in doing business. It may also be difficult to perform relevant comparisons between similarly situated businesses. Typically, companies in such a position will utilize a financial data gathering firm, such as Dun & Bradstreet, to generate a report summarizing any known financial information about the business of interest. Such a report has come to be known in the profession as a “D & B.” A problem with this type of financial reporting is that information about a company, obtained by these financial information gathering firms, is largely obtained through solicitation from the company itself. Once this self-reported information gets into the information gathering firm's possession, the submitting company no longer has control over its distribution. As a result, companies are generally reluctant to provide full disclosure, and may even be incentivized to mislead companies seeking to gather information on them. Also, because financial data gathering firms must rely on the willingness of businesses to disclose information to them, it is unlikely that uniform information will be available for all reporting companies. As a result, a consumer of such information will have difficulty in making a balanced comparison between two or more similarly situated businesses based on financial metrics. Another problem with conventional financial data gathering firms is that the data collection method may be disjointed, consisting of various sources that must be manually assimilated into a format that is valuable to consumers of such information. This is a labor intensive process which increases the ultimate cost for such information and likely reduces its accuracy.
Accordingly, there is a need for an improved system for sharing financial information of businesses with interested parties which ameliorates or overcomes the deficiencies of known systems.
One such system for selective sharing of business performance information is disclosed in U.S. Patent Publication No. 2005/0240467, which discloses an automated system for allowing a submitter business to selectively share business performance information with requester businesses through a business performance information sharing data center computer system over the Internet. A submitter business uploads a data file including business performance information such as a trial balance report generated by the business' own accounting software program. The uploaded file is converted from the submitter-defined format to a standardized format. Various business performance data analyses are performed on the standardized-format data including generating standardized business performance reports and analyzing the data in accordance with financial metrics. After the business performance data have been formatted and analyzed, the submitter will specify one or more companies authorized to view the business performance data including specifying a level of business performance detail, from a plurality of levels of detail, and/or a business performance time period for which that authorized company may view business performance information.
Although some companies collect trade and identity information via manual processes, there is, however, a need for an automatic system that collects trade and identity information.